Checking In

Playing With Scale #2 is done and dusted! It's a concept that I have no doubt will continue to show up again and again in future quilting efforts. Am still very intrigued by free-cut strips too. There's just something about the off-perfect lines that appeal to this utility-look loving quilter! You can read more about this quilt at my blog if you like. Overall, I'd say this quilt idea was a success. I'm always happy when a fun stack of fabric winds up being turned into a spunky looking quilt!

Second time around

Also, I recently posted the update on this U&U interpretation project. It's the base inspiration for the #AHIQFlowers prompt. I'm leaving it up on the design wall until all the little pieces are decided on and sewn together. It may take me clear till the end of the year, but this one is going to be moved along one way or another.

U&U Interpretation quilt for #AHIQFlowers challenge

Was working late into the evening the other day, fiddling and fiddling and fiddling. Then finally something sort of gelled for me and the entire quilt started making sense. For the left side of the quilt I had only been focusing on getting the shape and spirit of the quilt to shine through. Now, it's slowly starting to become 'my' quilt and I can see bits and pieces of my own quilty voice coming through.*sigh  FINALLY.  

I'll show pictures when it's finished, but I just wanted to be on record that I am working on this quilt though progress is oh-so-slow. While process pictures are usually interesting, this quilt is not very receptive. I'm too 'in the moment' to want to disrupt any important thought process and derail an entire evenings momentum! One thing I got rid of was the big chunk of yellow numbers fabric in the bottom right corner. Just too distracting. Also, I changed out the peachy fabric in the upper right for something a bit stronger looking. Same color, just a bit bolder. Little changes. It's all good. Gonna turn out just fine in the end I think.

Two Good Finishes to Close Out the Summer

Here's the two latest finishes originally resulting from AHIQ prompts. One was deemed,  'Use Your Words' and the other was a later 'Coins' challenge. They were both started in the year 2017 and the quilt tops have been completed for quite some time now. 

Make Beautiful Things

As always, these prompts are open ended which is something that I appreciate very much. Having lots of room for creativity is something my brain seems to thrive on. Somehow I tend to merge most of the challenges with yet another one. The first quilt could also qualify for a response to the 'Two-Block' challenge or even 'Playing with Scale'.

Count Your Blessings

This Coins quilt has the 'Use Your Words' thing going on and also perhaps the 'Two-Block' challenge incorporated as well. Ann and Kaja are clever to take simple ideas and open up a whole new way of looking at them. Invariably, I end up with so many ideas that they predictably spill over into several other quilts! Of course I have written lots and lots more about these late summer finishes of mine if you're interested in reading anything extra....

The Last Adhoc. Projects from 2018

It feels good to know that I've wrapped up the last two open-ended Adhoc. Improv. projects. One was a follow-up of our Playing With Scale challenge. You can read lots more about the quilt over at my last post as I rambled forever.

Lots of improv. piecing!

I can see that this concept is one that I'll continue to revisit through the years. Simple, repeating elements mixed with changes in proportion are a fun way to show off fabric or play with color. This quilt was a tough slog at times though, and in the end, I took advantage of my son being gone for the weekend in order to bring the quilt top to completion. I desperately needed that time to ponder and tinker and play with the pieces. His bedroom joins with my quilting area and so I essentially co-opted his bedroom floor for the duration in order to have plenty of  'design floor' time. Once I got the rows figured out--where they joined up with each other {side by side}, how much to chop off or add to the ends, overall color flow and balance--then all I had to do was make sure the components stayed in the proper order. The rest I could accomplish from the tiny floor in my quilting room!

Playing With Scale #2

I also wanted to post a picture here of my results to the Maps Challenge. As most of you know, it has been named, 'Directions From a Local'. When I posted about it the other day {over at my blog}, I completely forgot to make sure it was over here as well! This challenge was really hard for me to get started on. And in fact, I never really did. What happened was that I eventually attempted to recreate a Roderick Kiracofe 'Unconventional & Unexpected' quilt, which, as per usual, took a few detours.  Along the way, it unexpectedly blossomed into my answer to the maps challenge.  First when I added the 'turn right' arrow in the center and then later when I allowed the unmeasured, free cut strips to make a huge, wonky mess of the quilt.

Directions From a Local

I think some people were appalled when I subsequently cut into the quilt and straightened it up by easing out the wobbles. Oh it definitely lays fairly flat and straight now, contrary to what it looks like in the above picture. Believe me, it's just a bit rumpled from being folded and put into a zip-bag for several days! Something about hacking into my quilt and basically 'letting the chips fall where it may', actually felt very cathartic though. That was after I got over the initial trepidation of course.

Regardless, it definitely made it easier to add a 'road' to the quilt , which for some reason felt so silly when I was only 'thinking' about it. Then it all just sort of fell into place without the fussiness or detailed piecework that I had somehow imagined would be needed. The lettering was the most time consuming part of the entire project. It so easily said everything the quilt needed to say without having to wrap wording around the quilt on every side. That's what my brain was trying to insist had to happen in order for the message to read properly. Can you tell that I had really built this challenge up into something to be dreaded? lol 

So glad I went with that seed of the initial idea {the right turn arrow} and gently, slowly, let the quilt tell me what to do next. On another note, all the fabric was sourced directly from my stash with the exception of one piece of black fabric when I ran low and didn't want to substitute another color. There is also one piece of mixed cotton/poly fabric included {the brown/white gingham}--a definitely departure for me. It was not fun at all to mix in with the cottons, but really helped give the quilt more of that utility look that I love and adore. This quilt has a lovely, subtle glow to it, a nice feeling of old fashioned charm and also a whimsical message. What more could I ask for? Now the slate is cleared and I'm ready for the next challenge coming up! #unconventionalandunexpected

The Spotted Winkel - A Finished Quilt

The Spotted Winkel is finished!

This is my "Playing With Scale" challenge quilt

made during the first six months of 2018.

Come on over to my blog to read the story

behind this quilt and enjoy LOTS more photos.

Thanks to Kaja for this super fun challenge!

I'm looking forward to what Ann suggests next.

Quiltdivajulie

Progress Update

Happy happy to my AHIQ friends! More progress was made on my Score #5 attempt. This picture basically represents the middle portion of the quilt. As I was pondering the overall look, it occurred to me that this may be too short to gracefully accommodate the remaining two vertical rows that need to be added.*grr  How tricky will that be to add on one extra block onto the ends of the four rows already sewn together?

Score #5

I had a crazy amount of fun working on this project {can read more about that over on my blog}, but it still had lots of tough moments working with flow and respect to the original quilt formula. Somehow my quilt has more of a rail fence feel than the enclosed square look that caught my eye in the original {pictured in The Improv. Handbook for Modern Quilters by Sherri Lynn Wood}. By now I've worked with enough improv. to know not to fight authentic flow, no matter where or how it might deviate from our original thought or intent.

What I'm looking forward to most with this Score #5, is the idea of learning more about 'permeable borders'. I think that's something that happened in my latest quilt finish, but it should be helpful to experiment with this idea in a whole new setting. As a dedicated border enthusiast, I have a habit of locking down and closing in my quilts with strong, obvious boundaries and borders. Just the nature of this particular score eliminates that as an option which will help force me to work through my natural design inclinations....*fingers crossed!

Playing With Scale #2

Then there's this second improv. quilt that sprung up almost out of nowhere. Months ago I had gathered a stack of fabrics together with the vague idea of making a quilt for the wedding of a relative. After much thought, I decided it was too much effort to expend on a couple that might not recognize me if I met up with them unexpectedly in a store! Hmm... Is that mean? But That Fabric....

And so I pretty much dove head first into making the initial units. Just enough to get a good feel for moving forward before I wrenched myself back and grimly focused on more important projects. lol Isn't it fun to have these open ended improv. quilts in the queue? This will probably be Playing With Scale #2 if I give in to the urge to include larger triangles. {And I know that's where I'm headed so why fight it?} I'm beginning to think my mind won't even function anymore without dreaming up more improv. ideas. One idea gets finished up and another pops up right behind it. For now I'm busy making lots and lots of freehand hst blocks before I will attempt to make more strippy units. There is a very, very loose plan in the works, but we'll see how that pans out before committing to anything too structured. Happy stitching, Audrey

p.s. Not to be repetitive in any way, but moving forward my intention is to try to balance both this and my regular quilting blog. I really like the quilting journal aspect of my original blog and want to keep it current as well.

Playing with Scale

Since this is the 4th Tuesday of the month and would previously have been link up day I thought I'd do a quick round up of my Playing with Scale challenge stuff.

My first go was based around wanting to use a large scale green and black print that I'd had for ages, with the additional challenge of using much bigger individual blocks than I would tend to.  I have started quilts before intending to keep things large, but my natural inclination seems more to be for working smaller and smaller and smaller.

This went okay for me. It turns out I didn't mind the bigger blocks, I liked how the green and black fabric worked and I learned a bit about balance: when there are fewer components you have to make sure each one is in the right place and pulling its weight; when there are loads of much smaller pieces I think it's easier to have one or two less than perfect bits and still get a satisfactory overall look.

Since the challenges this year are running for 6 months instead of 3, and I find that they provided a focus and  impetus that is really fruitful for me, I thought I'd try to keep elements of the playing with scale theme in the next quilts I made. So, with Findhorn I deliberately played around a bit with the scale of my flying geese...

and in the current project I am using two different sizes of block. 

Overall, I think that I have learned a lot about placement during this challenge and have articulated some things that I probably knew on some level already, specifically about movement and rhythm in my quilting, about how using similar units in different sizes helps to create that rhythm and about the impact you can get from working with larger units (yes, I know this last one should have been pretty obvious, but sometimes it just takes me a while).  

I'm looking forward now to finishing the latest quilt off and being ready for Ann's challenge next month.

On a practical note, I am assuming most people will just put up posts when they want to, but if you have a post on your blog already, you can just post the link here and ask us to visit.  If you can't currently post on this blog and would like to, get in touch and I'll send you an invitation.

Kaja

My AHIQ quilts from 2017

Here goes - this is my run through the quilts I made for the AHIQ challenges in 2017.  It's been a fruitful way of working for me that has combined well with a move towards using more recycled fabrics in my work.  

Chinese Coins

Two Blocks

This next quilt wasn't for a challenge, but was the next one I made and was directly influenced by these first two.  This time I played around with hourglass blocks and HSTs.

Last but not least, The Shipping Forecast, made for the Words on Quilts challenge. 

Kaja

My Name is Julie and I am a Maker

I made this quilt - Words to Live By -

during the AHIQ challenge for "words on quilts"

You can read more about it by clicking HERE

and scrolling back through the posts.

I made this quilt - Metamorphosis -

during the AHIQ challenge for coins quilts.

You can read more about this one by

 clicking HERE and scrolling back through the posts.

This is a photo of another AHIQ quilt -

Dumpster Diving 2.0 aka Good Morning Sunshine -

that happened as a result of the "two block quilt" challenge.

This one has been quilted just this week

and its finished reveal post is still pending.

You can click HERE and scroll back through the posts

to learn more about how this one came to be.

This is my current AHIQ project 

for the "Playing With Scale" challenge.

The Spotted Winkel is currently pin basted

and due to be quilted later this week -

if life cooperates.

You can read about its genesis and evolution

by clicking HERE and scrolling back through the posts.

* * *

I am very happy to be part of the AHIQ

and I love my quilts that have grown 

out of the AHIQ challenges.

I'm delighted with this new format

and look forward to seeing what others share here.

Quiltdivajulie